Little Eyolf (Mencken Translation): Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Little Eyolf (Mencken Translation), credited to Henrik Ibsen, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Little Eyolf (Mencken Translation) by Henrik Ibsen. (Translated by H. L. Mencken.) Read in English by Expatriate. One of the four profound plays of Ibsen’s late period (along with “The Master Builder,” “John Gabriel Borkman,” and “When We Dead Awaken”), “Little Eyolf” tells the story of Albert Allmers, a writer who has yearned to leave behind a literary or philosophical legacy of some kind, but who finally decides to invest that yearning in the life of his little handicapped son, Eyolf. Rita Allmers loves her husband so obsessively that she hates any rival for his affection, whether it be Allmer’s literary magnum opus, Little Eyolf himself, or Albert’s strangely devoted sister Asta. Little Eyolf’s tragic death, possibly orchestrated by the eldritch old Rat-Wife, brings about a psychological climax among the three adults, as they reveal to each other deep conflicts of love and hate, complex erotic desires, raw honesty about their emotional emptiness in the face of human tragedy, and the realization that all that really matters to any one of them is Life itself. The famous H. L. Mencken heads a team effort committed to the colloquial, lucid rendition of this alternative translation. ( Expatriate)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Little Eyolf (Mencken Translation)
• Author credits: Henrik Ibsen
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 2:38:00

Catalogue topics

• henrik ibsen

Track guide

1. 00 - Introduction — 28:49
2. 01 - Act I — 53:16
3. 02 - Act II — 43:09
4. 03 - Act III — 32:46

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.